I was at a wedding in California over the weekend. Normally I hate the time change going from ET to PT because it always messes with my body clock (especially when it's only for a short period of time), but in this particular case it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because the gold medal game between USA and Spain started at 11:30 pm local time, allowing me to watch it without too much difficulty.

It was an amazing game - redemption for the US team, and if you ask me, validation for Spain as well, which took Team USA's best shots and still made it a game to the end.

Henry Abbott over at TrueHoop spent some time today playing prognosticator, thinking about what the US team might look like in 2012.

In what is no surprise to me or the rest of the Hawks fans who saw him play night-in and night-out last season, Abbott names Al Horford to his 12-man roster for the World Championships in 2010 and Summer Olympics of 2012.

Horford will have to settle his passport issues (he's originally from Dominican Republic but has lived stateside for a long time, so obtaining citizenship should be mere formality), but given the way his career has started, I'd actually be pretty surprised if Abbott is off the mark on this one. Big Al's game is tailor-made for international competition - he is terrific defensive player both positionally and one-on-one, can score effectively in the post and facing up, and is a terrific passer to boot. If you assume Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh will be on the team, the only other big man I see standing in line ahead of Horford (if that, even) would be Greg Oden.

Horford is already on the national team radar, having participated on the US Select Team this summer in scrimmages against the senior team that competed in Beijing. Horford will most likely keep on improving between now and then, which could make his selection even more of a no-brainer, but if he merely maintains his current level I'd still put him on the roster if I were in charge (can I be in charge?).

Just another reason (on a growing list) I'm happy to have this guy on our team.